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Wednesday, 31 August 2016

King Mswati III of Swaziland who has just taken the
Chair of SADC has been revealed to exploit child labour on his fields. He has
been named in an international report on the trafficking of people.

The Trafficking in Persons Report
2016, issued by the United States Department of State
stated that Swazi chiefs, who are directly accountable to the King, ‘coerce
children and adults—through threats and intimidation—to work for the King’.

It added, ‘Swazi
boys and foreign children are forced to labor in commercial agriculture,
including cattle herding, and market vending within the country.’

King Mswati was at the centre of an international
controversy in January 2015 when it was revealed that schools in Swaziland,
where he rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, were
forced to stay closed after Christmas so children could weed
the King’s fields. As many as 30,000 children were thought to have missed
schooling as a result.

In Swaziland chiefs do the King’s bidding at a local
level. People know they must obey the chief because their livelihood depends on
his goodwill. In some parts of Swaziland, the chiefs are given the power to
decide who gets food that has been donated by international agencies and then
the chiefs quite literally have power of life and death in such cases with
about a third of the population of Swaziland receiving food aid each
year.

The
Trafficking in Persons Report 2016 also stated that
Swaziland was a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and
children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour.

It added, ‘Swazi girls, particularly orphans, are
subjected to sex trafficking and domestic servitude, primarily in Swaziland and
South Africa. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has contributed immensely to the increasing
number of orphans and other vulnerable children at risk of exploitation through
trafficking.’

It added, ‘Mozambican boys migrate to Swaziland for
work washing cars, herding livestock, and portering; some of these boys become
victims of forced labor. Traffickers use Swaziland as a transit country to transport
foreign victims to South Africa for forced labor.

‘Traffickers reportedly force Mozambican women into
prostitution in Swaziland, or transit Swaziland en route to South Africa. Some Swazi women are forced into
prostitution in South Africa and Mozambique after voluntarily migrating in
search of work.’

Tuesday, 30 August 2016

Organisers have said 98,000 ‘maidens’ were transported
in 80 buses to attend Swaziland’s Reed Dance where they would dance half-naked
in front of King Mswati III. But newspapers and social media have disputed the
figure.

Innocent
Maphalala, the editor of the Times
Sunday, one of the kingdom’s few independent newspapers, wrote this would
mean each bus would have carried 1,225 girls on each journey or
each bus would have to make 15 trips.

Newspapers
reported each of Swaziland’s four regions was given 20 buses. The main Reed
Dance ceremony took place on Monday (29 August 2016) at the Ludzidzinipalace.

Reed Dance Overseer Hlangabeza Mdluli was
reported in the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by
King Mswati, saying that ‘safety was made a priority for the maidens’.

The SABC
in South Africa quoted Mdludi saying,‘We used buses to transport the girls this year, this shows that things
have changed and we want our people to be safe.’

The emphasis on ‘safety’ followed a tragedy at last
year’s Reed Dance when 13 women and children died when the open backed truck
they were travelling was involved in a collision. The dead were thrown clear of
the truck.

Photographs later revealed the maidens were
being transported like cattle. The girls were forced
to stand up in the back of an open truck cheek-by-jowl. There was no space to
sit down or even to turn around. Photographs showed that at least sixty
children were squashed onto the back of a single truck. Many of the trucks that
transported the girls were usually used to move building materials.

Tens of thousands of young girls from across Swaziland
are forced to travel in similar trucks to attend the Reed Dance where they are
expected to dance topless in front of Swaziland’s King Mswati, sub-Saharan
Africa’s last absolute monarch. Media in Swaziland routinely describe the girls
that dance for the 48-year-old King as ‘virgins’ or ‘maidens.’

Monday, 29 August 2016

Riot police in Swaziland
fired shots over the heads of striking workers who were protesting for an
increase in pay of the equivalent of 35 US cents per hour.

Two shots were fired by the
Royal Swaziland Police (RSP) when workers demonstrated outside the Plantation
Forestry Company.

The strike has lasted more
than nine days. Chairperson of the Swaziland Agriculture & Plantations
Workers Union (SAPAWU) Sibusiso Masuku said workers demonstrated in front of a
group of police.

The Swazi Observer newspaper reported on Wednesday (25 August 2016)
that one police officer fired two shots into the air, ‘which caused panic
amongst the workers’. However, no one was hurt.

The newspaper reported Masuku
saying, ‘We were shocked by the gunshots but we are not backing down. It seems
our complaints are not being heard by the administration. First we were told
that we cannot hold our legal strike inside our work premises so we were forced
to demonstrate along the dangerous road.

‘Then we were allowed to
picket inside the Plantation Company premises but now we want to take the
strike to our work stations.’

Police in Swaziland regularly intervene on behalf of
employers in industrial disputes.

In October 2015 police fired shots and teargas at
protesting textile workers at the Zheng Yong Garment factory in Nhlangano. They were protesting against the
behaviour of security guards.

In June 2015, Swaziland was
listed as one of the top ten worst countries in the world for workers’
rights. It was grouped alongside some of the worst human rights violators on
the planet, including Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Guatemala, Pakistan,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Thursday, 25 August 2016

The political dimension of
Swaziland’s annual Reed Dance was at the fore this week as thousands of
supposed-virgins were taught songs in praise of the kingdom’s autocratic
monarch, King Mswati III.

The Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by the King who rules
as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and is about to become Chair of
SADC, reported on Wednesday (24 August 2016) that they sang songs
congratulating him on his new appointment.

In past years the maidens
had been taught to sing songs denouncing political parties.

Swaziland is the only
country within the 15-member Southern African Development Community where
political parties are banned from taking part in elections. King Mswati chooses
the government of his kingdom and none of the Swazi Senate are elected by the
people.

The Reed Dance or Umhlanga is an annual event in which
tens of thousands of bare-breasted ‘maidens’, some as young as ten, dance for
the pleasure of the King. It is widely reported within Swaziland that the
dancers are ‘virgins’.

Newspapers in Swaziland
reported that 98,000 maidens had registered to take part in this year’s
ceremony.

The Reed Dance, billed as
Swaziland’s foremost cultural day, proved to be anything but in 2013 when
120,000 half-naked maidens reportedly sang a song praising the Kings then-recent
pronouncement about his continued rule over his kingdom.

They praised the King for announcing that
henceforth Swaziland would be a ‘Monarchical Democracy’. This was a new name
for the already existing ‘Tinkhundla’ system that puts all power in the hands
of the King.

The King said he had been
told in a vision to make this change.

The song included these
words (loosely translated from the original), ‘Your Majesty Swaziland is well
governed through the Tinkhundla System of Democracy and will be victorious
through it.’

The Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the
kingdom, reported at the time, ‘Royal Swaziland Police Superintendent Wendy
Hleta who was the Master (sic) of
Ceremonies together with Former Indvuna YeMbali Nothando Ntshangase noted that
the maidens were seemingly pleased with the message conveyed by the new
composition.’

The sinister nature of the Reed Dance was exposed in 2012 when about 500 children were
ordered to sing a song vilifying political parties. This was part of a
clampdown on dissent in the kingdom.

The children were taught a
song to sing at the dance which had lyrics that when translated into English
said political parties ‘set people against each other’ and said that if
political parties were allowed to exist in the kingdom the King’s people ‘could
start fighting each other’.

Political parties are
banned in Swaziland, but there is increasing pressure from pro-democrats for
this to change. Some traditional authorities also believe that support for the
present system that puts them in control is on the wane. In Swaziland
pro-democracy demonstrations have been attacked by police and state security
forces.

Wednesday, 24 August 2016

King Mswati III, the autocratic King in Swaziland and
soon-to-be Chair of SADC, has been exposed for misleading the 15-nation
community that his kingdom was capable of holding the organisation’s 36th
Summit.

Swaziland is so poor and lacking in infrastructure
that is has been unable to find living accommodation for all those wanting to
attend the Summit. A call went out this week for people to offer up spare houses
to delegates.

King Mswati who has been a controversial choice as the
next Chair of the Southern African Development Community has used the Summit as
part of his campaign to convince his subjects that Swaziland will be a
‘first-world’ nation by 2022.

The Times of Swaziland,
the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom where King Mswati rules as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, reported on Wednesday (24 August
2016), ‘a number
of the delegates found themselves with no accommodation as most of the hotels
and lodges along the Mbabane/ Ezulwini/ Manzini corridor are fully booked. It
was gathered that a search for people who own houses that could be used to
accommodate some of the delegates was instituted.

‘A government official, who is part of the committee responsible for
welcoming SADC delegates, said they were currently running around trying to get
accommodation for the stranded delegates.’

The Times reported, ‘Director
of the SADC Unit Chazile Magongo said it was the responsibility of the Ministry
of Tourism and Environmental Affairs to provide accommodation for SADC
delegates.’

The situation on the ground contradicts the message
that King Mswati’s supporters have been spreading in recent weeks that the
kingdom was able to support such a prestigious Summit. Seven in ten of King Mswati’s
1.3 million subjects live in abject poverty with incomes of less than two US
dollars a day.

The King has been a controversial choice of SADC Chair
because Swaziland is the only one of 15 SADC nations where political parties
are banned from taking part in elections. King Mswati chooses the government
and no members of the Swazi Senate are elected by the people.

King Mswati had used the Summit to try to impress that
his kingdom was a developed country.

Mbongeni
Mbingo, editor-in-chief of the Swazi
Observer, a series of newspapers in effect owned by the King, wrote as recently
as Sunday
(21 August 2016), ‘The King’s
vision has always been about showing that we are capable of just like the
bigger countries in the region, to stage as successful an event as them - and
that we can also demonstrate that while we are quite small and have a stunted
economy, we can be counted on to show that we are indeed a nation in progress.’’

He added,
‘Prince Hlangusempi informed the media, this past week, that Swaziland had
always opted against hosting the Summit, when its opportunity to host came up.
It was never ready, and His Majesty always felt that it was not the right time
to do so.

‘However,
when the opportunity availed itself this year, and His Majesty was to become
the next chairman of the SADC, he felt the opportunity could not be missed again
- or it could be another 14 or so years before we could host.

‘Therefore,
he decided that it was time to accept this challenge. Since then, he has worked
hard at ensuring that the country does not do an average job. This meant we had
to get the facilities to match our ambition.’

Wednesday, 17 August 2016

Swaziland
assumes the chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community for the
first time ever on Wednesday, despite protests from Swaziland and abroad that
the small absolute monarchy is not fit to chair the organisation,writes
Kenworthy News Media.

The
charter of the Southern African Development Country (SADC) clearly states that
member states should observe basic human rights such as the right to strike and
gender equality, and one of the main objectives of SADC is to support “regional
integration, built on democratic principles,” something that SADC’s new chair
Swaziland clearly does not.

Suppression,
torture and lack of rights
In fact, American research NGO Freedom House ranks Swaziland as the least free
country of the 15 members of SADC, in regard to political rights and civil
liberties, below countries such as DRC Congo, Angola and Zimbabwe.

Swaziland
is the only SADC country where political parties are banned from taking place
in elections. King Mswati chooses the Prime Minister and government and has the
last say on legal and financial matters. Nevertheless, Mswati told SADC leaders
at a SADC Plenary Assembly Session held in June, that Swaziland was a
“democracy.”

In their
latest annual reports, Amnesty International speaks of Swaziland’s “suppression
of dissent”, politically motivated trials” and “torture in police custody,” and
Human Rights Watch of “draconian legislation” and “severe restrictions on civil
and political rights.”

Protests
against ‘stronghold of dictators’
The media in Swaziland are more or less being ordered to praise the “great
achievement” of Swaziland leading SADC for the first time, as were the Swazi
population at the recently held Sibaya “People’s Parliament,” where Mswati
urged his people to be “respectful” during the summit and ordered that
“Emanyeva” [thorns] should be uprooted before the summit so they did not
“disturb” the SADC guests.

But
several protests have nevertheless been voiced against Swaziland’s chairmanship
of SADC and hosting of the 36th SADC Head of States summit starting
August 17. Both in regard to human rights issues and the reports of king Mswati
spending in the region of 40 million rand on the summit while over a quarter of
the Swazi population are affected by the drought and people are beginning to
die of starvation, also due to the lack of drought relief financing by the
Swazi government.

Lucky
Lukhele from the Swaziland Solidarity Network told African News Agency that the
last thing SADC needed was a chairperson who made the region “look like a
stronghold of dictators” that would institutionalise dictatorship across the
region.

Mario
Masuku, the President of the banned pro-democracy-party the People’s United
Democratic Movement said that they were lobbying SADC member states against
Mswati and that there were plans to launch protests during the summit.

Abusing
public resources while people starve
Swaziland took over the chairmanship from Botswana, a multi-party democracy and
one of SADC’s more human rights friendly nations, and criticism of the Swazi
chairmanship has been especially strong from here.

Both
political leaders and union leaders have said that Swaziland’s king Mswati III
should not have taken the chairmanship of SADC because he is “a dictator”.

It is “a
matter on great concern to us,” Vice President of the Botswana Congress Party
Kesitegile Gobotswang told the Botswana Guardian, “because the country
[Swaziland] has thus far refused to embrace the values of democracy. This is an
indication that the regional body [SADC] is not committed to democratic
values.”

“Mswati
does not qualify to hold that position at all … he is a corrupt leader who sees
nothing wrong with abusing public resources while people starve,” added
President of the Botswana People’s Party, Motlatsi Malapis.

Friday, 12 August 2016

Members
of the Media Workers Union of Swaziland (MWUS) have gathered near the offices
of the Swazi Observer for several
days to protest low wages, management intimidation and poor working conditions.
The union was barred from holding an actual picket by Swaziland’s High Court,
writes Kenworthy News Media.

Negotiations
between the Swazi Observer, a
newspaper in effect owned and controlled by absolute monarch King Mswati III,
and MWUS had started in April, but no real progress has been made since they
became deadlocked in June.

Fair pay
and decent working conditions
The union demands a 25 percent pay rise, that senior reporters ought to be
allowed to be members of a union of their choice, an end what it calls job
promotion nepotism and intimidation of union-affiliated members, newly serviced
cars that are safe do drive, proper medical aid and the resignation of the
managing director.

According
to a statement released by MWUS in June, the Swazi Observer management countered by offering no pay rise and the
newspapers’ managing director said that management would “plant intelligence
within all the departments of the company”, something that was condemned by the
union as “threat and intimidating antics”.

Police
intimidation
“There is an employee who earns as little as 1500 emalangeni [€100] a month and
many of our members are subject to risky conditions as they are made to drive
cars which have long been stopped being serviced. One member reported a car he
was driving had its steering wheel disconnecting while the car was in motion,”
Secretary General of MWUS Sicelo Vilane told members gathered outside the
offices of the Swazi Observer on Monday.

An hour
after he held his speech, Sicelo Vilane was approached by an intelligence
officer who introduced himself only as “Mkhwanazi,” who told Vilane that the
police wished to “form part of the negotiations as a third part”. MWUS sees
this as a measure of intimidation against the union.

There are
also indications that Sicelo Vilane might be arrested for contempt of court for
allegedly defying a court order that barred the protesting workers from
entering the premises of the Swazi
Observer, even though he is adamant that none of the union members had done
so and that there had been no wrongdoing on the part of him or the union.

Media
censorship and harassmentThere
have been many previous indications that all is not well at the Swazi Observer and in the Swazi media in
general. In 2009, Swazi Observer
managing editor Mbongeni Mbingo nearly lost his job for publishing a piece on
the king’s fleet of luxury cars. He later wrote, in an article published on the website of the
Freidrich Ebert Stiftung, that “the press in Swaziland is largely expected to
toe the line and be a lapdog not a watchdog.”

In their 2015 “Freedom of the
Press”-report, American
research-NGO Freedom House describes how king Mswati “further restrained an
already weakened media environment in Swaziland, [where] both journalists and
media outlets were targeted by officials through the use of restrictive
legislation” and how “the government withholds advertising contracts from
critical media outlets”.

According
to the Human Rights Watch 2016 world
report,
“journalists and activists [in Swaziland] who criticized the government were
often harassed and arrested … Many journalists practiced self-censorship,
especially with regard to reports involving the king to avoid harassment by
authorities”.

Thursday, 11 August 2016

The
Sibaya ”People’s Parliament,” where Swaziland’s absolute monarch summons his
subjects to the royal cattle byre to discuss pressing issues, was held over the
last week. Many issues were raised, but in previous years little has
happened as a result of it, writes Kenworthy
News Media.

“Raise
grants for the elderly”. “Stop repossessing our land in Vuvulane”. “My kids go
to bed hungry”. “Ordinary people don’t have access to radio”. “Minimum
wage should by 3000 emalangeni”. “We have no land, even though the constitution
says every Swazi should have access to it”. “Cattle roam the streets and are
causing accidents”. “The cabinet should be fired”. “Inequality causes
division”.

A multitude
of issues were taken up at this year’s Sibaya People’s Parliament, an event
that according to Swaziland’s constitution is “the highest policy and advisory
council” that is meant to enable “the views of the nation on pressing and
controversial issues” to be heard.

But one
of the problems with Sibaya, as can be seen in the quotes above, is the
fragmented nature of the political and social discussions. That there is no
direction or common agenda, and any true and structured discussion on political
change in the absolute monarchy is drowned in a sea of complaints that might be
relevant for the person voicing them, but do not really touch upon the root of
the problem, namely that Swaziland is ruled by and for a small royal elite.

Another
important matter is that much of the criticism at this year’s Sibaya, while
criticizing the Prime Minister and the cabinet who are all appointed by the
king, fell short of criticizing King Mswati who, as an absolute monarch with
the final say on all matters, actually has the power to change things.

And even
when people get to the root of the problem at Sibaya, such as when Dukanezwe
Dlamini dared stand up and tell King Mswati that he should allow multiparty
elections to be discussed at the “People’s Parliament” so that Swazis could
“deal with the issue once and for all and let the nation decide on whether they
want parties or not”, nothing really comes of it.

At the
2012 Sibaya, ordinary Swazis also called for the introduction of multi-party
elections in Swaziland and for firing Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini,
none of which happened.

But as
Afro-American politician, abolitionist and escaped slave Frederick Douglass
pointed out in 1857, “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and
it never will,” a sentiment shared by President of the banned Swaziland Youth
Congress, Bheki Dlamini, who does not believe that Sibaya or the people’s
parliament can bring about real change.

“Sibaya
is a fruitless exercise meant to deceive the gullible masses and the sceptical
international community to believe that there is some semblance of democracy in
Swaziland, yet there is none. As Swazis we want real change and this change can
only be started in an all-inclusive political process, a national convention
with clear terms of reference. The levelling of the political field, which
includes unbanning political parties and allowing political exiles to return
home, is paramount in the transition process. Mswati must stop fooling us. His
dictatorship is too obvious for us not to see it.”

Monday, 8 August 2016

Political and workers’ leaders
in Botswana have said King Mswati III of Swaziland should not take the chair of
SADC later this month (August 2016), because he is a ‘dictator’ in his own
kingdom.

The King is due to hold the
chair of the Southern Africa Development Community because each of the 15 countries
in SADC take it in turn.

Botswana is a member of SADC
and a multi-party democracy. TheBotswana Guardian newspaper reported
that civil society groups, labour leaders and politicians were against King Mswati.

The Guardian reported Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang, vice president of the
Botswana Congress Party (BCP), saying, ‘Although Swaziland is a sovereign
state, the fact that King Mswati III is ascending the SADC chair this August is
a matter of great concern to us because the country has thus far refused to
embrace the values of democracy.

‘This is an indication that
the regional body is not committed to democratic values.’

The newspaper reported, ‘In
his view, the development is a setback for the region because Mswati III is not
competent to meaningfully intervene when there is a crisis especially where
democracy is the issue.’

Motlatsi Molapis, President
of the Botswana People’s Party (BPP), reportedly said, ‘Mswati does not qualify
to hold that position at all. Not only is he a dictator but he is also a
corrupt leader who sees nothing wrong with abusing public resources for his
benefit while people starve.’

Nelson Ramaotwana, the
Botswana National Front (BNF) Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said all
countries, including Swaziland, were free to run their affairs according to
their own home-grown processes.

‘Mswati is, however, not
the right person for the job because he cannot mediate between government and
its people where matters of democracy are concerned. In his country, civic
right groups including political parties and trade unions are, for all intents
and purposes, banned.’

Ketlhalefile Motshegwa, Deputy
Secretary General of the Botswana Federation of Public and Private Sector
Unions (BOFEPUSU), reportedly said, ‘He rules by decree. There is no bargaining
council and those who raise their voices about his abuse of power are
incarcerated. Above everything else, a leader must be a role model with regards
to what the organisation he leads stands for.’

He added, ‘We are liaising
with like-minded organisations in the SADC as well as embassies to reject his
chairmanship. We will also lobby Swazis here and back home to join us in the
rejection of King Mswati III. We seek to isolate him,’ he said.

Opposition groups within
Swaziland have also spoken against King Mswati. The Communist
Party of Swaziland (CPS), in a statement, said, ‘The
CPS is astonished that the governments of Southern Africa show such massive
disregard for the plight of the Swazi people as to put absolute monarch Mswati
III at the helm of SADC, supposedly an organisation that defends democracy, the
rule of law and human rights.’

It added. ‘The CPS urges all its supporters in
Swaziland and in exile and all those in the broader pro-democracy movement to
put the spotlight on SADC’s moral black hole that is Swaziland, as Mswati
dresses up as the chairman of SADC and wallows in the applause of SADC’s
democratic heads of state.’

SADC
states that its objectives are to, ‘achieve development, peace and
security, and economic growth, to alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and
quality of life of the peoples of Southern Africa, and support the socially
disadvantaged through regional integration, built on democratic principles and equitable
and sustainable development.’

In August 2015, Human Rights Watch said
in a statement, ‘SADC member states have taken little action to ensure
respect for human rights and the rule of law in all southern African countries
despite identifying peace, security, and the promotion of human rights as key
concerns within the region.’

Swaziland is the only member of SADC where political
parties are banned from taking part in elections. King Mswati III rules as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch and he chooses members of the
government. Opposition groups are banned under the Suppression of Terrorism
Act.

Human Rights Watch said, ‘In Swaziland, human rights
conditions and respect for the rule of law have deteriorated significantly.
Restrictions on political activism and trade unions, such as under the
draconian Suppression
of Terrorism Act, violate international law, and activists and union
members risk arbitrary detention and unfair trials.’

Friday, 5 August 2016

An eight-year-old schoolboy in Swaziland was thrashed so
hard in class he vomited. It is feared he might have internal bleeding as a
result.

And, his teacher forced classmates to hold the boy down
while he whipped him with a stick.

It happened at Siyendle Primary School, near Gege, the Times
of Swaziland reported on Thursday (4 August 2016).

A group of schoolboys had been inflating condoms when they
were discovered by the teacher.

The Times reported,
‘When the teacher saw what the boys were doing, he is said to have reacted by
telling other pupils to hold the one who had the condom in his hands so that he
could deal with him. Apparently, he thrashed the eight-year-old so badly that
the pupil began to throw up in the presence of his classmates.

‘The boy’s parents suspect that the child suffered internal injuries, which might
have caused his reaction.’

Schoolchildren in Swaziland are regularly subjected to
fierce corporal punishment. In
a report in 2011, Save the Children said school students were being ‘tortured’.
In a submission to the United Nations review on human rights in Swaziland it
said Mhlatane High School in northern Swaziland had ‘institutionalised’ corporal
punishment.

‘Teachers can administer as many strokes [of the cane] as
they desire, much against the limit stipulated in the regulations from the
Ministry of Education,’ Save the Children reported.

‘Students at this school are also subjected to all forms of
inhumane treatment in the name of punishment. The State has known about the
torture of students that go on at Mhlatane High School for a long time, but has
not done anything to address this violation of fundamental rights.’

It cited Mhlatane as the worst case, but said excessive
corporal punishment was rife in Swazi schools.

It reported, ‘The hitting of students by teachers in schools
is not limited to strokes of the cane, but includes such methods as a slap with
the open hand, kicks and fists.

‘In one case in a school in the south of Swaziland, a young
girl was kicked in the groin by her teacher after she refused to lift up her
leg during physical education classes. She had told the teacher she cannot lift
her leg up because she was wearing nothing underneath. This angered the teacher
and earned the girl a kick in the groin.

‘The damage occasioned led to paralysis as the girl walks
with difficulty today, and her menstrual cycle was disturbed since then.
Although initially protected by the principal and other Ministry of Education
officials in Nhlangano, the teacher was eventually arrested after intervention
by the girl’s elder sister.’

There had been 4,556 cases of ‘severe corporal punishment’
of children in Swaziland’s schools over the past four years, an international
news organisation reported in March 2016.

Star
Africa quoted Zanele Thabede from youth group Super Buddies, who leads a
team looking into youth and child issues, who in an interview said the number
of whippings dated from 2012.

Star Africa reported Thabede saying, ‘Corporal punishment by
teachers and principals is legal and routinely practiced and there is a growing
trend of incarcerating of children and youth in the Malkerns Industrial School
for Rehabilitation because of “unruly” behaviour.’

There is confusion in Swaziland as to whether corporal
punishment has been banned
in schools. It is believed that a directive was issued to schools in 2012
not to use corporal punishment but few teachers appear to know it had been
made.

The Times of Swaziland reported in
October 2015 that Phineas Magagula, Minister of Education and Training, warned
that teachers who beat pupils should be reported to the ministry so that they
could be disciplined.

As recently as June
2016 it was reported that a 20-year-old female school student had been
given nine strokes of the cane on her buttocks at Herefords High School by the
male principal. Police were informed.

Thursday, 4 August 2016

Swaziland’s
king Mswati III passes suppression, unaccountability and royal opulent spending
in the face of drought, starvation and poverty, as traditionally “Swazi”
values. Sonkhe Dube, a young exiled activist, begs to differ, writes Kenworthy News Media.

“The
Swazi system of governance, ‘Tinkhundla’, is indeed unique”, says, Sonkhe Dube,
who is the International Secretary of the Swaziland Youth Congress. “They claim
it is a democratic institution that encompasses traditional form of leadership.
But in a democratic state, the cabinet is not handpicked by a king who
literally controls everything without being accountable to his citizens”.

King
Mswati III has recently spent US$ 14 million on a new personal 375-seater jet
and will be spending millions of dollars more on hosting a SADC Heads of State
summit this year, while a quarter of his population is starving. According to
the World Bank, Swaziland is a lower middle income-country.

Swazi law
and customIn
Africa, many colonial authorities and traditional leaders together recreated
the relatively pluralistic and consensus-driven traditional chiefdoms into a
source of royal power that could be controlled by indirect rule.

In
Swaziland, king Mswati’s father king Sobhuza II was given the power to appoint
and dismiss chiefs and in 1957, 11 years before independence, acts of
disobedience against the king was made illegal by a colonial act. The foundations
that were laid for such royal hegemony were seen a couple of years after
independence, in 1973, when Sobhuza II banned political parties, declared a
state of emergency that is yet to be officially repealed and began ruling as an
absolute monarch.

Tradition
is also the basis for Swaziland’s constitution (from 2005), where the words
“…in accordance with Swazi law and custom” are used many times. The
constitution also gives the king executive authority in Swaziland and in effect
lets him determine what constitutes “Swazi law and custom”.

Cultural
oppressionNevertheless,
Swazis are made to believe that the monarchy rules through the people by way of
a traditional people’s parliament, ‘Sibaya’, say Sonkhe Dube.

“But when
the king called Sibaya in 2012, and the convention pronounced to the king that
they wanted the Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini and his cabinet out, the king
responded by keeping them. The same Prime Minister is still in charge, against
the will of the people”.

Ordinary
Swazis are also at the mercy of the king through his chiefs in their everyday
lives. One example of this was in September 2014 in Nokwane, where the houses
of many poor Swazi families were bulldozed to the ground without a warrant and
with only 48 hours’ notice, to make way for a Science Park. Many of them had
lived there for decades and had nowhere else to go.

“Chiefs
allocate land to people and chase them out of their chiefdoms if they feel
there is something wrong with them, as happened in Kamkhweli and Macetjeni,
where the king sanctioned the eviction of families. The king and the chiefs
also order their subjects to do voluntary manual labour in their fields. The
product from the manual labour culturally has to cater for the vulnerable and
orphaned, but currently it is not doing that, yet people are still required to
provide labour for the chiefs and the monarchy. Culturally, the king and chiefs
do not own the land but are supposed to be holding it in trust for the people”,
Sonkhe Dube says.

Greedy
monarchyNo
culture remains frozen in time. Culture is, or ought to be, about the
adjustment of society to the needs of its citizens, as well as the other way
round.

And
according to Sonkhe Dube, the current Swazi Tinkhundla system of governance is
by no means adjusting itself to the needs and wishes of the people. It is
neither democratic nor even truly traditional in a Swazi sense.

“It is a
system based on the manipulation of culture to satisfy the insatiable appetite
of the greedy monarchy. The monarchy should stop hiding behind culture. Swazi
culture in not only about ceremonies but also about social responsibilities
which the present powers that be are intentionally ignoring”, says Sonkhe Dube.

Sonkhe
Dube is a teacher by profession. He is the International Secretary of the Swaziland
Youth Congress (SWAYOCO), and is currently living in exile in neighbouring
South Africa due to his pro-democracy activism and affiliation to SWAYOCO. He
has been arrested, detained and tortured on several occasions by King Mswati’s
police. He cannot go back to Swaziland, he says, because he fears the response
of the brutal Swazi police.

Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Rape of a wife by her
husband is legal in Swaziland under newly-documented Indigenous Swazi Law and
Custom. A man can also legally rape his lover.

The Times
of Swaziland,the only independent daily newspaper in the
kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch,
reported on Wednesday (3 August 2016) that the document states, ‘A husband
cannot rape his wife.’

The newspaper reported that
the 317-page document called The
Indigenous Law and Custom of the Kingdom of Swaziland (2013) had been
presented to the King.

The newspaper reported the document
was compiled by Professor Frances Pieter Whelpton, a Professor of Law at the
University of South Africa.

The Times reported, ‘Under Chapter 7, which addresses offences
(emacala) in Swaziland, rape is said to be committed only if the woman forced
is not the man’s wife or lover.

When defining rape in Swaziland, it says in the past, penetration was not an
essential element. ‘Throwing a female to the
ground and grabbing hold of her in an unsuccessful move to ravish her amounts
to rape. However, every act of intercourse is supposed to be accompanied by a
struggle because the woman is not supposed to submit to the man,’

In July 2015, it was reported to
the Swazi Parliament that there had been 124 cases of rape in Swaziland in the
previous three months. This was an increase of 11.7 percent when compared to
the same period from April to June 2014 when 111 cases were reported. The
figures revealed 51.6 percent of the 124 rape cases were committed against
children aged 17 years and below.

Rape and sexual abuse of
children is common in Swaziland. In 2008, Unicef
reported that one in three girls in Swaziland were sexually abused, usually
by a family member and often by their own fathers - 75 percent of the
perpetrators of sexual violence were known to the victim.

Many men in Swaziland
believed was all
right to rape children if their own wives were not giving them enough sex.
In 2009, men who were interviewed during the making of the State of the Swaziland Population report said they ‘“salivate” over
children wearing skimpy dress codes because they are sexually starved in their
homes.’

Monday, 1 August 2016

King Mswati III of
Swaziland has collected about E40 million (US$3 million) to host a lavish SADC Heads
of State summit at a time when his government could release only E22 million of
the E305 million earmarked for drought relief in this year’s national budget.

The King, who is
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is to assume the chair of the
Southern African Development Community on 17 August 2016.

About 300,000 of the Swazi 1.3
million population face severe hunger as drought hits the southern African
region. Despite this, the King called for donations from parastatal
organisations, businesses and overseas’ companies to allow him to host what the
Swazi Observer,
a newspaper in effect owned by the King, called ‘an epic event’.

The newspaper reported on
Saturday (30 July 2016) that, ‘the King expressed pleasure that the donations
proved quite enough to assist the country host an epic event’. He reportedly praised
foreign investors for coming forward with ‘notable donations’.

The Observer also
reported that among donations offered to the King were avocadoes,
fruit and vegetables that would be used for meals during the summit.

While King Mswati prepares
to party his subjects are ravaged by drought. In April 2016, UNICEF
– the United Nations Children’s Fund – reported
it needed US$151,200 for its Child Protection work relating to the drought that
has hit Swaziland. In
June 2016 it reported that no money at all was forthcoming. It estimated
that 189,000 children under the age of 18 were affected by the drought.

In July 2016, James
Simelane, Member of Parliament for Sandleni Constituency in the Shiselweni
region, was reported in the Swazi Observernewspaper saying people had started dying of hunger
in his constituency because the Swazi Government had failed to deliver food to
drought-stricken areas.

As of the end of May 2016, UNICEF estimated 300,320
people in total in Swaziland were affected by drought of which 189,000 were
children. It estimated that 165,000 children affected were by drought in the
two most affected regions of Lubombo and Shiselweni.

A total of 200,897 people were food insecure, of which
90,404 were children. Of these, 8,460 children aged 6 to 59 months were
affected by ‘severe and moderate acute malnutrition’.

Also in July 2016, it was
revealed that King Mswati was about to receive a 375-seater private jet worth
about US$14 million paid for by his Government.

Meanwhile,
the Swazi Government has released only E22 million of the E305 million
earmarked for drought relief in this year’s national budget. The Swazi
Observer newspaper reported on 11 July 2016 that the Deputy Prime
Minister Paul Dlamini announced this to the House of Assembly.

The
newspaper reported he ‘failed to
explain the reasons behind government’s failure to purchase and distribute food
to the affected communities’.